The cover art of upcoming Steve Grimmett's Grim Reaper album "Walking In the Shadows" revealed!
The singer Steve Grimmett formed a solo career band simply called "Grimmett" in 2006, which soon released one album, titled "Personal Crisis", in 2007. After this, Grimmett took his solo band's members (guitarist Ian Nash, bassist Chaz Grimaldi, and drummer Paul White) and formed "Steve Grimmett's GRIM REAPER" with them, and they started to perform the old Grim Reaper songs such as classics "See You In Hell" live, for several years, without releasing a new full-length album; until now, when "Walking In The Shadows" comes out at September.
Steve Grimmett is known for being lead singer of Grim Reaper, as well as being the singer of Onslaught, Lionsheart, and Chateaux; and in addition, being featured in some other lesser known projects. He started initially with a demo band called "Medusa" in 1978, prior joining the very early form of Grim Reaper. The new guitarist Ian Nash was also part of "Lionsheart", by the way.
Grim Reaper from UK, on the other hand, was first formed around 1979-1980, and after the band pushed a few instrumental demos out, they were soon signed by UK label Ebony Records (who also had bands such as Chateaux, Blade Runner, Dealer, Nightmare, and Lethal signed at the time). Steve Grimmett soon joined to Grim Reaper as a singer, before their first LP release called "See You In Hell" (1983). Grim Reaper was originally a part of N.W.O.B.H.M. -movement of UK in the early eighties, and released two more post-N.W.O.B.H.M. albums before disbanding: "Fear No Evil" (1985) and "Rock You To Hell (1987). Grim Reaper's musical style on the old days was pure heavy metal; not quite as rough and raw than many of the N.W.O.B.H.M. bands around, such as Jaguar or TANK. They were a bit more melodic like Iron Maiden; but similarly more flashy, more rocking, more sleazy, less epic, more... cheesy, one could say; in an enjoyable way.
(Grim Reaper's debut album; "See You In Hell" from 1983 with Steve Grimmett)
Grim Reaper was one of those bands which just went into adding several of those heavy metal "cliches" into their music, music videos, and appearance - and they enjoyed every second of it. The band wore flashy colored clothes combined with leather and spikes. There were a lot of lyrics about evil, hell, vampires, and other dark mythical things; battles with swords; of women and broken hearts; but they were presented in less serious way (at least how I see it). Grim Reaper were a band which received rather big amount of criticism because of their "cheesy" imago back in the day; accompanied with the fact that some considered them not having "pretty boy" enough in the vocals at the front of the stage (but when the hell has heavy metal ever been about the looks rather than music, itself? Never.). I feel most of the criticism back in the day was rather uncalled for; from people, who probably didn't get the band and heavy metal in general; bigger masses, who weren't ready for them when the band received airplay in major media such as MTV. As the flip side, that airplay also gave them wider recognition for true fans of heavy metal, who hadn't heard about the band before. Grim Reaper always aimed to be fun, catchy, energetic bunch, at least, that's how I believe; and they totally nailed it in the eighties, despite some of the early material having slight repetitiveness, and simplistic song structure. The band had flashy guitar solos, which added a lot of needed melodic depth. The shearing and wailing high pitched vocals by Steve Grimmett were always somewhat exceptional in the band's music - and the man could hit falsetto screams with ease, when needed on occasion, whilst his upper end mid-range featured slight amount of sleaziness; the vocals were accompanied with straightforward, effective, and energetic rhythm guitar riffs, and melodic lead guitar hooks. The set-up was really enjoyable to listen to in all of the band's three albums.
I'd say that Grim Reaper in the 80's were fairly easy to be recognized from the masses of heavy metal with their trademark qualities of the sound. They had fair amount of talent, and hooks in the music, definitely, to keep things interesting and memorable; far beyond an average band of the time. The high point of the band's career would probably be their third album "Rock You To Hell".
("Night of The Vampire" from the third album "Rock You To Hell" from 1987)
We'll see how the new album compares to the classic Grim Reaper albums, when it hits the stores. At the moment, we're unsure whether we can expect some musical changes or not, since it's been forever from release of the last "Grim Reaper" record; almost three decades - accompanied with all the new line-up changes, since the band was reformed with revamped version of the old, under the banner of "Steve Grimmett's GRIM REAPER". We assume that Grimmett owns rights to the old Grim Reaper material, since the band's official website lists the both, the old albums (under the name "Grim Reaper"), as well as the new one (at the moment 2011 live album, and soon the new full length, too; under the name "Steve Grimmett's GRIM REAPER") under it's "discography" section. Here's the only glimpse of the new song material this far, for those who haven't seen the live gigs of the new revamped band, anyway; it sounds somewhat familiar for the fans of the 80s "Grim Reaper":
("Blue Murder", live 2014, by revamped version of "Grim Reaper", known as "Steve Grimmett's GRIM REAPER"; a new song that should appear on the upcoming album)
Nevertheless, the new album is will be out at September 23rd, followed with a world wide tour - something to look into for a classic heavy metal fan. The line-up for the recordings of "Walking In The Shadows" was most likely the same than the current live line-up:
Steve Grimmett - vocals
Ian Nash - Guitars
Chaz Grimaldi - Bass
Paul White - Drums
Also, while you're at it, be sure to check the recent interview of Steve Grimmett, by Neil Turbin (ex-Anthrax) from The Metal Voice.
-www.kultmetal.com | Tane Norther
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